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Components of language processing and their long-term and working memory storage in the brain
1Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, United States.
Handbook of Clinical Neurology
|August 14, 2022
Summary
The temporal lobes are crucial for language, but frontal and parietal regions, not the temporal lobes, support working memory (WM) for phonology, semantics, and orthography. Different brain areas sustain WM for each language domain.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Science
- Psycholinguistics
Background:
- The temporal lobes are recognized for their role in long-term storage of phonological, semantic, and orthographic information essential for language processing.
- A key debate in cognitive neuroscience concerns whether these same temporal lobe regions are recruited for the temporary maintenance of information in working memory (WM) or if distinct brain areas are involved.
Purpose of the Study:
- This review investigates whether temporal lobe regions are critical for phonological working memory.
- It also briefly examines related findings for semantic and orthographic working memory.
Main Methods:
- The review synthesizes evidence from lesion-symptom mapping studies.
- Functional neuroimaging data are also analyzed to understand brain region involvement.
Main Results:
- Evidence across phonological, semantic, and orthographic domains indicates that parietal and frontal regions, rather than temporal lobe regions, are critical for supporting working memory.
- Distinct frontal and parietal regions are implicated for working memory in each of these three domains, arguing against a general attentional role for these regions.
Conclusions:
- The findings suggest that while temporal lobes house long-term representations, frontal and parietal regions are essential for maintaining these representations in working memory.
- This implies a crucial interaction between temporal lobe long-term memory stores and frontal/parietal working memory systems for language processing.
Keywords:
Inferior parietal lobeLesion-symptom mappingMultivoxel pattern analysisRepresentational similarity analysisTemporal lobeVerbal working memoryfMRIMore Related Videos
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